President Business Forum Punjab (BFP) Ibrahim Qureshi has criticised the government for unfairly taxing the common man Rs 60 to 100 billion per annum through an ad valorem surcharge on the price of petrol. Talking to media, President BFP said the Federal government's methodology to impose an ad valorem surcharge on the price of petrol is based on a percentile formula resulting in unreasonable and disproportionally high tax burden especially on the general public already burdened by high inflation, he added.
He emphasised that no surcharge should be levied at all on petrol price. "Before we begin to fix this faulty taxation system, we must first curtail expenses and reduce deficits being incurred directly a result of corruption and incompetence", he added.
Regarding MFN status to India, Ibrahim said that BFP supports a pro-trade policy not only with India, but throughout the South Asian region. Currently, he said, 90 percent of our trade takes place outside the region against an ideal situation of 2/3rds trade within regional partners. However, we need to listen to and seriously address the concerns of industrial, business community before jumping towards a December 31, 2012 deadline of removing the negative list. He said that the BFP is completely against this unfair timeline and demanded a 36 months initial period to maintain the negative list with a review at the end of this period before such a major policy decision is undertaken.